Pages

Friday, December 17, 2010

Shifting Gears (WoW Instances)

Yesterday I didn't even log into WoW. I spent a little gaming time messing around trying out games on my new Android. I actually want to write more about them and plan to but I got to thinking today about some of the posts in my feed that caught my attention. Mainly concerning add-ons in WoW and the level of difficulty of the dungeons now. I suppose the community overall when it comes to working together.

Given time, these instances will even out. I know they will, they most always do by the end of the expansion we'll all be plowing through them in shiny epics. Well, maybe some of us. Right now our gear is pretty 'craptastic' and most dungeons are pretty new to us. We are still in the learning phase.

However, it seems Blizzard wants us to shift gears in this expansion and go back into more of a state of awareness while in dungeons. It doesn't so much remind me of 'vanilla' more along the lines of BC (*Pukes* a little bit, thinking about BC). I remember running around sporting my blue gear proudly in Vanilla, I don't remember doing this in BC. Why I say this is because in BC things were harder, they were heroic. We didn't have heroics in the first few years of the game.

Which leads me to my next thoughts, we can't ever go back because people are too busy rating you by your gear ilevel or gear score and watching recount. As long as these are factors in the game it will always be one big competition. Say it all you like, that these can be used as tools for good, in the end they are used more to abuse than anything else. They can point out who to avoid, who is abusing them and so on but if they were not there in the first place we wouldn't have to bother with them. There are now rating add-ons. Rate this person by your experience playing with them... Nice, so if some player gets mad I won a roll and they lost... they can give me a bad rating? You'd have to be ignorant to use an add-on like that, that's all I have to say about this one.

So with all of this said. I don't hate ALL add-ons. I just don't like the big competition. I like working together. This expansion is pushing us to work together but with the cross server instances it's still hard as hell. I'd much prefer to group with people on my server (Horde and Alliance- Yeah I know it WILL happen one day, I tell you!!), instead of strangers who have no repercussions for their behavior. People will still base your worth on your gear rating and dps, not taking things into account such as CC and skill. It will make it harder to slip into this 'Lets all work together' mentality".

I find myself not very excited about doing dungeons right at 85. With friends, sure- Not pugs! It will be hard for some to change the old 'GO GO GO' mindset, causing a lot of trial and error. I suppose this is all part of the game but you can't aim for the past in MMO games. We will never return to those old glory days, too much water is under the bridge and too much has changed within these games.

I do hope to see people working together more. I am sure many larger guilds will be working together more so to work on guild leveling and achievements. Which may hurt the LFG scene for awhile, causing longer wait times. I suppose we shall wait and see. Things will even out, people will cry for it to stay hard or it to be easier.

All we can do is try to enjoy it and work together. Isn't that why we play MMO games, the interaction? Playing with others? If you don't like working with other people why do you even join groups? Lets not all glorify ourselves over our shiny ilevel and epics and how AWESOME we or whomever has them is/are- Because in the end, nobody went in and got them alone, they were gained from working (With other people!!!!) as a team!

I leave you with some simple advice: Stop looking at your add-ons to rate people, be nice to your group mates, try working as a team and have fun!